This past Saturday Phil preached on Romans 12:9-16. The title of the message was Marks of a Christian Community. I’ve included my notes below. Take a look and think of where you could grow.
1. Let love be genuine.
2. Hating evil. Holding fast to the good.
3. Brotherly affection
4. Honoring others.
5. Spiritual enthusiasm
6. Having a joyful hope.
7. Patient suffering.
8. Constantly in prayer.
9. Generosity.
10. Seeking to show hospitality.
At the kickoff meeting last Saturday we introduced the small group book study for the year covering Don’t Waste Your Life. We will have three small groups that will be meeting twice a month on Sunday, Monday, and Saturday.
If you missed the kickoff meeting (or did not sign up then), you can still sign up for one of the groups using one of the forms below.
Don
This year small groups will be meeting twice a month to study the book Don’t Waste Your Life, by John Piper. Don’t Waste Your Life is a passionate plea to this generation to live for God and his glory.
From the back cover:
John Piper writes, “I will tell you waste a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader’s Digest: A couple ‘took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30-foot trawler, play softball and collect shells….’ Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: ‘Look, Lord. See my shells.’ That is a tragedy.
“God has created us to live with a single passion: to joyfully display his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life. The wasted life is the life without this passion. God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of, but to make much of him in every part of our lives.”
Most people slip by in life without a passion for God, spending their lives on trivial diversions, living for comfort and pleasure, and perhaps trying to avoid sin. This book will warn you not to get caught up in a life the counts for nothing. It will challenge you to live and die boasting in the cross of Christ and making the glory of God your singular passion. If you believe that to live is Christ and to die is gain, read this book, learn to live for Christ, and don’t waste your life!
We would like to encourage you to go ahead and order the book and the study guide if you can. Please order the books now so that you will have them in time for your first small group meeting. If cost is an issue, both are available online for free in PDF format here.
This coming Saturday (October 17) at 6:00pm we will be kicking off the singles ministry for the coming church year. We are really excited about introducing you to the the small groups book study that we have planned for the year. You will have the opportunity to pick a group near you that will be meeting bi-monthly. The book that we have chosen for the study is John Piper’s Don’t Waste Your Life. (Go ahead and order a copy of the book and the study guide if you can. The book and the study guide are also available for free in PDF format here.) More on this latter.
We are delighted to have our senior pastor Phil Sasser with us Saturday to bring the teaching.
We’d like to encourage folks to invite friends as this is a great time to introduce people to our singles ministry since it marks the beginning of the church year for us.
There will be food and fellowship following the meeting.
RSVP for this event on Facebook.
